Let lying dogs sleep: This Ken Lamberton guy must have a big pair of balls to write about his sordid past. You would think he would be hiding under a rock for what he did ("Redemption Song," Megan Irwin, March 1).
If he hadn't tried to profit from what happened by writing about it, I would be prepared to say that he should just be left alone, that he did his prison time and thereby paid his debt to society.
Now, though, I hope he gets all the scorn possible for bringing fame to himself for something so reprehensible as having sex with a 13- or 14-year-old girl. He was a teacher, for Christ's sake, somebody parents trusted with their kids.
Thomas Sanders, Phoenix
Adult hood: You make Ken Lamberton sound like a saint — someone who was prosecuted under some archaic law. Not once in your article does he show remorse or state what he did was wrong.
Even if the 14-year-old did consent, it is the responsibility of adults to protect our children and to make the right decisions. Ken did neither of these and has probably scarred the girl for life. Yet he is profiting from this by writing books. The girl should get his royalties.
K. Anderson, Phoenix
Its okay; we cant always finish reading the letters, either: I had Ken Lamberton in the seventh grade, and he was a horrible teacher. He always seemed very distracted in class. Why bring this sick guy back up?
I'm sorry that I couldn't stomach the whole article. I respect Kelly Gregan for not responding. Who would want to re-live this part of their past life? I'm also wondering how putting her name into the media benefits her. She was a minor when the crime took place. I thought minors' privacy was protected for life. I guess not.
Amy Fitch, Mesa
Those meddling kids: It was interesting to read that it has been 20 years since Ken Lamberton ran off with a female student. I notice that your article says he seduced her and, yes, he should have known better, especially since he was already married.
Yet where is the accountability of underage people wearing sexy clothes and throwing themselves at adults? Isn't that seduction, too? It seems to even be okay if teenagers under the age of 18 have sex with each other, but not if one is 18 years old and falls prey to some "innocent" little victim.
Same goes for teenage boys who had sex with older men such as priests over and over again, then 20 years later say their lives are ruined. Who forced them to go back for more?
Hey, my aunt and grandmother were both married at 14 and had children by age 15. Both also stayed married for more than 50 years! Of course, they were from the old country!
Please don't think I'm advocating a sexual free-for-all. I just don't think all teenagers are poor defenseless kids who don't know what sex is about and that their lives are ruined by some of these encounters.
Candi Kane, via the Internet
Knock on Peckerwood
Basura by any other name: Could somebody please tell me why we need another radio bigot screeching hatred toward Mexicans? Aren't there enough of these idiots around already? I refer to Darrell Ankarlo, relatively new to our community and the subject of The Bird's recent rant ("Hate Jock," Stephen Lemons, March 1).
Just as The Bird crowed, "Ankarlow-brow" is just another loudmouth catering to the peckerwoods who so hugely populate the Phoenix area. He preaches to the choir converted to dumb-ass prejudice, those who just aren't smart enough to see that this whole area would go under economically if we didn't employ "illegal" Mexican labor. Those who continue to think that Mexicans are taking our jobs, when not a single one of the complainers would be willing to work in a Carl's Jr. for minimum wage or dig ditches on a construction site for shit money.
Okay, can we blame Ankarlow-brow for trying to get ratings? I wonder if he even believes what he says, or is merely just a performer appealing to the hillbillies. Darrell, if you do really believe that the Mexican neighborhoods you stupidly denigrate are any worse than white-trash neighborhoods in this town, you are as big a dumb-ass as The Bird contends you are. If for no other reason than the denizens of these white-trash neighborhoods are your core listeners, you should get some reality therapy.
Kenneth Lane, Phoenix
Another angry white woman: Regarding your hit job on KTAR radio host Darrell Ankarlo, it is my opinion that people rarely get as pissed off to spew as much venom and vitriol as your piece does unless the subject is telling the truth. No one gets mad at a lie like they do at the truth.
So, in all reality, your piece just goes to prove that Darrell must have been telling the truth about something that hit many sore spots with you.
You must have taken a page from the liberal playbook — Step 1: Go after character first, hence your lines (white sheet, nasty little piss-ant, angry white man, bigot boy, Ankarlo's trailer-trash).
Since you had nothing of value to argue and that is all you had, just who is the bigoted little piss-ant?
I will point out that not only is Ankarlo correct in his assessment, but those who aid and abet those who come here illegally and break the law should also be in jail, not out lobbying for reform to allow their actions to be grandfathered in.
Since you seem to be of the opinion that all those breaking the law to get here are just some poor schmucks who need a job, you are a part of the problem.
Melissa Powell, Fort Worth, Texas
And the real situation would be . . .: I'm of Mexican descent, and I don't like what the illegals do to our system. I'm talking about the ones who cross the border and come here to work and the ones who come up and get on welfare. My taxes increase to support them; I have to wait hours in the emergency room for a major injury because 50-plus illegals are using the hospital for common colds.
The ones who do work don't pay taxes. Yes, they put some money back into the community, but most of it goes back to their families in other countries (just check with Western Union). And when they do their peaceful marches?
The assholes pulled into the parking lot and blocked in my car during one of them — the car that I needed to use to go get my 7-year-old daughter who was throwing up in school and needed to go to the doctor.
So get off your racist attitude and address the real situation. Stop jumping on the boo-hoo bandwagon.
Juan Lopez, Chandler
Drive carefully, sir: You really hit the nail on the head when you wrote about Darrell Ankarlo, whose show I never miss because he pisses me off so much. I am a loyal listener who loves to hate him.
I pounded on my steering wheel until I almost broke it one day when he was ignorantly ranting about Mexican-Americans, contending we were traitors to this country for supporting our so-called illegal brethren getting fair treatment in the workforce from the U.S. government — which is what the marches through the streets of American cities have been all about (there's another one coming up May 1).
I am a Latino who was born in this country and whose parents were born in Mexico. I guess that makes me an "anchor baby," according to Ankarlo? Well, he and the other haters spewing such bullshit can go fuck themselves! I pay taxes in this country, and I'll get a parade permit and organize a march right down the street in front of his house if I feel like it.
Javier Villalobos, via the Internet
That Nobody Can Deny
We know, we know: Oh, oh! Stephen Lemons is in a world of doody now! He's gone after the 9/11 "truther" nut-jobs. There may be fewer of them every day, but the remaining cadre doesn't forgive and doesn't forget ("Prevaricators' Powwow," The Bird, March 1; also see Lemons' blog, Feathered Bastard).
The "troofers" have had more than five years to get their "facts" straight and come to their final conclusions. Everyone who disagrees with them is "in on the plot" and therefore deserves to be slandered and lied about. So, watch out, here comes a tempest in a teapot.
Dave Hutchison, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Well keep your rsum on file: My impression of Stephen Lemons is that he has a personal agenda that he is pursuing while posing as a journalist. His column before the 9/11 Accountability Conference and his subsequent behavior at the conference were bizarre.
While a group of us talked with him at the conference, I told him that he had convinced me that he was ignorant on the subject [of 9/11 accountability] and that he needed to do his homework. He replied that he had looked at many DVDs and books on the subject. My response was, "Well, now you've convinced me that you're stupid."
Would it be possible for you to replace Lemons with somebody who can approach a subject with objectivity and a commitment to journalistic standards?
Robert G. Kahl, Tucson
Consider it covered: New Times' blog and print coverage of the 9/11 Accountability Conference focused on the flaws of the organizers, at the expense of the larger story.
A real understanding of 9/11 has to go back several decades to U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan. The American CIA and military created groups of radical Islamists to bring down the Soviet Union, funding the mujahadeen in the Afghan-Soviet conflict. The American power structure acted through CIA bank BCCI and the Pakistani ISI. The U.S. has had a protective relationship with Pakistan ever since. Mahmood Ahmad was allowed to quietly resign, after the wire transfer scandal, on October 6, 2001. Why did he not stand trial in the U.S. for funding terrorism? This is exactly what responsible journalists should ask. It's too shocking for some, but it looks like the 9/11 attack was generated inside the U.S. intelligence networks.
I was a part of a group of 9/11 researchers who recently supplied the Joint Terrorism Task Force with data on [alleged 9/11 lead hijacker Mohammed] Atta's American drinking buddy, Wolfgang Bohringer. When the JTTF seized Bohringer on November 18, the first words out of his mouth were, "You can't arrest me, I'm working for CIA." He was then released.
In August 2001, the Israeli CIA, the Mossad, was kicked out of Florida by the American CIA, when it got too close to Atta and cohort Marwan Al Shehhi. This story was in the big papers in Germany. Why has this not been reported in the U.S.?
Sander Hicks, Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York
Different pages indeed: It seems Steve Lemons is adroit at name-calling and accusations but not much else. For weeks, he has been bleating about Eric Williams' beliefs about the Holocaust [Williams is a Holocaust denier who was an organizer of the 9/11 conference in Chandler] because they are not in keeping with his own. Grow up, Steve, not everybody sees things your way.
Next is the attack on the character of [conference organizer] Kent Knudson. You do not have to agree with the man, but a vitriolic attack only shows you to be the one intolerant of any other viewpoint but your own. By the way, Kent put up some of his own money to guarantee the conference would be a go.
Margo Bald, Tempe
